Burning Paradise
by Winter's Bane
Summary: Itachi sacrificed everything for Sasuke and in his dying wish trusted him with his precious son, Aska. It is a race against time to unravel the mysteries behind the madness manifesting in both Aska and Sasuke's eyes before their insanity turns fatal.
1. Aska

**My first Fanfiction but flames are welcome (but compliments are nice too…)**

**This is a one-shot but I may add on if I get enough reviews telling me to continue. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own the NARUTO characters, Aska is a fictional character I made up and has no actually correlation with the anime**

An anxious Uchiha Sasuke was giving death glares to the door that was confining him in Konoha Hospital. He was waiting for Shizune to

come in and give his five-year-old nephew the diagnosis, and could only pray that Sakura's suspicions were wrong about Aska's condition. It's

probably just harmless imagination, nothing more than a phase Aska is going through. Sasuke had been telling himself that ever since Aska's first

birthday. Old memories began to play in his head. Minutes passed and Sasuke decided to make an attempt to socialize with his nephew. Using his

most exasperated voice Sasuke said. "Look Aska!"

Earning an immediate reaction from Aska, who jumped onto his lap and practically screamed "Wha iz it Sasha?"

Sasuke pointed towards the far end of the room. Aska's red eyes sparkled with fascination as they followed Sasuke's finger to a bird that was

perched on the windowsill. "Iz Dada ! Iz Dada!"

Blinking away tears Sasuke whispered, "Aska, your Dad isn't coming back…"

Aska was oblivious to the pain that he had just inflicted upon Sasuke and continued. "Wave Sasha the Unicorns say allo!"

Not wanting to be a kill joy Sasuke started to wave at the invisible unicorns when Shizune walked in. "Don't encourage him Uchiha, you're

only making matters worse." Shizune scolded sitting down in the chair next to him. Sasuke grew silent as she began shuffling through the papers

in her hands.

Neither Shizune or Sasuke noticed Aska had moved over to the wall and started to walk into it as though it were a door. "Ware iz te andle

Dada?" Aska asked looking at the bird in the window for answers.

Upon hearing Aska's conversation Shizune turned to Sasuke she asked "Aska does know there are no windows in here right?" Sasuke sighed and

looked at her with his empty black eyes. Taking his stare as an answer Shizune continued "Uchiha I-I'm so sorry, your nephew has developed a

strange…most likely from Itachi's mutated Sharingan…seizures…eye tumors….brain….age seven is age expectancy…" Sasuke was half listening to

her diagnosis of Aska. He was only thinking of Itachi who had sacrificed everything for him, Sasuke wished he could repay Itachi in some way.

Sadness drenched his posture and speech as he continued the excuse he'd used for years. "It's his imagination…h-he's been through a lot…

he wants to escape to his own reality…nothing wrong with such a thing….he is five after all…"

Tears ran down Shizune's face, Sasuke's denial was inevitable as Sakura had warned her before. There was one operation to save the child

from inevitable madness.

Breathing hard Shizune told Sasuke. " Uchiha, there is one operation we could perform to cure this condition all together." Pausing to make

sure she had Sasuke's attention she continued. "I understand Itachi-san told you to care for this child. Sakura and Tsunade-sama both believe

that by removing his eyes it would prevent these hallucinations from his half opened sharingan and therefore preserve his sanity.

Blinking away tears Sasuke whispered "There is no window over there Aska…there are no unicorns flying… in the clouds…your Dad is..." Sobs

racked against Sasuke's lungs and his speech became barely audible. "…Transfer my eyes into his. It's the least I could do for him…for both of

them…"


	2. Hope

With each passing day Askas eyes looked more like ice; iris pale and watery. Sasuke often found himself staring into his nephews needle shaped pupils searching for the light that had once sparked within its depths. However all that remained in them was a glow both haunting and chilling. Medication in those brightly colored pills seemed to endlessly slip through the childs mind as the hallucinations grew more frequent. Whenever Sasuke gave Aska medication the response was always the same;

_"Why would you want my friends to leave Sasha?"_

_Sasuke knew the answer was simple and yet as he held unto his precious nephew, it was spoken through tears not words. _

_'Because I love you' _

**Authors note: **

Why it took me so long to update: ok this is my first fanfiction and let me just point out that I do have a learning disorder, ADD, meaning (in simplified terms) its hard for me to organize my thoughts into sentences that flow together and I also have grammar that is beyond repulsive. So please be considerate in any flames you decide to post, I am only 17 (and have a low self esteem about my writing as is). So reviews will help the speed at which I write the new chapters and post them up.

Next chapter will be a flashback of Askas memories surrounding his father and mother.


	3. Euphoria

Authors note: Thanks for those of you who reviewed, it really does help motivate me to write more when I get feedback. So please enjoy the story and review.

Chapter 3: Euphoria

* * *

A few hours had passed since the transplant took place and the anesthesia had already begun to wear off on Sasuke, faster than Sakura had hoped it would. As a medic nin Sakura knew full well the pain her husband would be in. Walking towards the morphine pump dangling from his IV drip, she pumped a safe dosage into his veins. She then leaned over giving her husband a chaste kiss on his lips before sitting on the stool beside his hospital bed, holding his hand in hers. She felt her eyes wander his face as though hoping to somehow read his mind. The sight of his now purple eyelids caused her cringe at the thought of how nothing lie beneath them. The sharingan was truly an enigma to every diagnostic doctor she had talked to. Sasuke had described what his brother's condition was like before he died in battle but the symptoms only led to more questions as to what caused them; bleeding from the eyes and mouth, loss of weight, dilated pupils, excessive coughing, red bags beneath the eyes indicating insomnia and extreme fatigue. Many doctors had theories of how these symptoms were all somehow connected to the eyes: parasites, genetic disease, even clotting or tumors of chakara forming in their eyes.

Whatever the cause, both Sasuke and Aska exhibited symptoms similar to one another although not to the extreme that Itachi had. In fact was what had baffled her collegues was the mental illness such as delusions and hallucinations having a much greater effect on Aska and Sasuke. While Aska exhibited more tendencies towards schizophrenia, Sasuke had become incredibly bi-polar exhibiting extreme manic depressive states ever since he had returned to Konoha. At first Sakura had dismissed Sasuke's odd demeanor and Aska's hallucinations as being merely psychosis that would fade away. However that was not the case as Sasuke developed even more vivid delusions that only aggravated his bi-polarity and Aska was diagnosed with childhood schizophrenia which was quite severe as he was hallucinating in four of his five senses; sight, hearing, taste, and touch.

To make matters even worse Sakura was pregnant in her third trimester with their first baby. She remembered how Sasuke had broke down into tears when she told him and what scared her was how they were hardly out of joy but sorrow instead. The delusions and paranoia had taken a toll on him, often he would have two panic attacks or delusions a week that would reoccur for months at a time whenever he felt stressed or afraid, which was all too often it seemed.

Sakura felt Sasuke's hand twist away from hers and watched him raise it towards the band aids she had wrapped around his eyes as she was lost in her own thoughts. Her eyes softened at her husband and whispered a few comforting words into his ear.

"Love you were right, Aska will be so happy to see through your eyes."

An unexpected scream erupted from Sasuke as he began to tear at the cloth, causing Sakura to fall from the stool. It was unlike anything she had ever heard, almost inhuman as it grew louder and louder. Desperately her hands tried to find his once more, but it was too late as Sasuke tore the bandages from his face screaming at the top of his lungs. Several nurses rushed in restraining him just barely enough to bind him to the bed once more before running off to find a doctor to consult the now blind and very awake Uchiha. Sakura ran a hand slowly through his hair for several minutes Sasuke breathed harshly and Sakura simply watched his monitor as they waited for the doctor, Shizune, to come. Before Sakura could ask him about his reaction she was reminded how ill her husband was as he answered for her. He didn't look at her but rather in her general direction, his voice shaken from screaming and his expression panicked;

"There are spiders Sakura…s-spiders I-I can't get em' out. Please help me…"

A hushing sound gently came from her lips as she kissed his forehead murmuring

" Sasuke there are no spiders just try to relax for a moment alright?"

Sakura could only flinch as he began to plead, she hated seeing him revert to this broken, vulnerable state as it only indicated his bi-polar medication had also worn off;

"Please, please…p-please….help me…Sakura please."

Shizune entered the room just then with a clipboard in her arm and a unnatural smile stretched across her face as she approached the couple. Looking to Sakura as she plucked a pencil from her hair stopping at the foot of Sasuke's bed curiously staring at him.

"How are you feeling Sasuke? Any pain or fatigue?"

Shizune raised an eyebrow seeing the Uchiha shake his head violently from side to side and turned to Sakura who just shrugged and repeated her question louder in Sasuke's ear.

Another minute passed before he stopped suddenly, his back rigid and hands shaking he spoke in the same broken tone;

"N-no, I don't….feel anything. Nothing at all…"

Sakura bit her lip, knowing the all too familiar signs of an impending panic attack, anything could set it off. Sasuke's voice turned shrill as he continued, "My soul feels . . .numb." He repeated the last word a few times before growing eerily silent, his spine hunched like bent bamboo, hands twitching too frequently.

"Uchiha, I can assure you it's most likely just an adverse effect of the morphine."

A dark aura seemed to ebb away from Sasuke's frame, his eyeless gaze disturbingly fixed on Shizune. Before Sakura could warn Shizune Sasuke snapped the bindings from his hands and arms. He reached for Shizune and with both hands boxed* her ears causing her to collapse on the floor convulsing in agony as her ear drums ruptured.

"Sasuke!" Sakura cried running around the bed towards Shizune. To her horror she only heard the Uchiha start to laugh. Euphoria, the word ringing loudly in her own ear drums, the word that made manic-depressive bipolarity a living hell for both the patient and those around them.

* * *

*Boxed = It's a marital arts attack that has devastating effects if done correctly. You basically cup your hands and then slap them as hard as possible over each ear on the opponents head. It can rupture the ear drum, cause permanent deafness, and occasionally causes the person to pass out. (DO NOT TRY IT, my dad's a doctor and has told me numerous horror stories about patients whom have suffered from this just because someone wanted to see if it "worked" or not. Because it does, trust me.)

Also I am basing Sasuke's bipolarity off of what I have witnessed in my grandfather who is manic-depressive (bipolar) and I am basing Aska's schitzophrenia off of my friend who has it to the same extent. Please refrain from judging my knowledge on the subject because I know all too much about it.


End file.
